Introductory Post

Hello and welcome! 

This is our first blog post and we are very excited about it. Welcome to the blog of Baker Company, First Battalion, 21^st Marine Regiment, a World War II Living History Reenactment unit based out of New England. We portray a basic Marine rifle company in the Pacific Theater during WWII. We also have a small group of women portraying USMC Women’s Reserve who were serving stateside and also on limited off-shore posts such as Pearl Harbor, HA and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

     In this post we will be explaining a bit more about ourselves, who we are, what we do, and things like that. Most of this information can be found in our “About US” section located at the top of the page, but this will be more of a lengthy explanation of what we specialize in as well as hints of our future content. So let’s get moving.

-WHAT WE DO…

     Baker Company, 1/21 is a small World War II living history reenactment unit based out of Vermont and Massachusetts. We participate in Living History displays to educate the public on what life was like for the Marines that fought in the Pacific Theater during WWII. Our USMCWR section specializes in recreating stateside life for those who were left on the home-front to maintain the bases while the men were away fighting.
     In addition to educating the public, we use the Living History display events as an opportunity to drill and work on the other aspects of garrison, and camp life. Not only do these drills and such give the public a look at how Marines trained during the time period, but also provides us with an opportunity to perfect our craft and expand our knowledge of the subject we portray.

     In addition to Living History displays, our unit also participates in private immersive events. What is an "immersive event" you ask? Immersive events are where we try and live as close to the way that they did as possible. We try and eat what they ate, sleep in pre-dug fox-holes or in small two man tents, we stand guard posts and do patrols. Most of these events we do not even fire a single blank. Instead we try to focus on general camp life, and small combat operations. We also try to keep conversations limited to material that was talked about from 1942-1945. Immersive events are an up-and-coming trend within the reenacting community and while we live in New England, we do not let that stop us from trying to perfect our impressions.
     Immersive events allow us to get into the minds and understand some of the conditions that these men lived through. Some of our immersive events may be garrison or training based, rather than combat centered, but whatever the scenario, we try and stay as true to what they would have done as possible. Immersive events will be covered in more detail in a future post, so stay tuned!!!!

     Finally Baker Company 1/21 will be participating in a tactical in Pennsylvania in 2019 based around the Battle of Okinawa. Tactical events are limited in the New England area because of the lack of Japanese reenactors, however this opportunity has come our way and we are going to capitalize on it. We will be using our training from the public displays and from the immersive events to make our participation in this tactical the very best it can be.

     We firmly believe that each one of these types of events that we participate in feeds off of the others. The Living History displays help us work on our drill and training and make us look the part of US Marines from the 1940s. The immersive events allow us to envelop the mindset of the standard US Marine fighting in the Pacific theater. It also allows us to perfect our knowledge and allows us to better present it and explain it to the public because to some small degree, we've lived a small piece of it. The tactical events allow us to perfect our knowledge on combat skills and tactics that would have been used. All of this culminates and allows us to give the best presentation of the US Marine Corps from 1941-1945.

-WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THIS BLOG…

     We hope to use this blog to share our reenacting experiences and research and other resources that we use to perfect our craft. We will post photos, both original shots from the war and reenacted images to explain the life of the ordinary Marine. We will tell stories that could belong to any Marine during this time. You will be able to find this under the hashtag: #STORY
     We will also be posting book reviews of both scholarly works and memoirs that we use to research and better understand the lives and conditions that these Marines lived. We never stop learning and sometimes read books several times to gather as much information from them as we can.
     There will be so much more to this blog but we don't want to give it all away now, do we? We urge you to stay with us and come on this journey with us as we do our best to bring part of the story of what has been called "The Greatest Generation."
    
     We hope you enjoy what we will be offering. We will try and post at least once a month. You can always stay current with us on our facebook page; www.facebook.com/baker1btn21stmarines and on Instagram: @baker_co_ww2. If you're interested in joining us, you can e-mail us at baker.1btn.21stmarineswwii@gmail.com. We are always looking for new recruits and are happy and willing to work with you while you get your kit together.
Semper Fi.

Photo thanks to A Timeless Collection